World Cup: Kosteniuk wins rollercoaster game

A tense struggle

The all-Russian final match of the women’s section saw top seed Aleksandra Goryachkina missing chances to get off to a winning start, as she failed to find the most precise continuations to convert a strong kingside attack into a win with the white pieces.

Power Play 24: A repertoire for black against the Catalan

On this DVD Grandmaster Daniel King offers you a repertoire for Black against the Catalan, based around maintaining the rock of a pawn on d5. Keeping central control ultimately gives Black good chances to launch an attack against the enemy king.

Goryachkina played the straightforward 36.Nf7+, when Black is surprisingly okay after 36...Kg8 37.Qd5 c3 38.Nxh6+ Kh7. In the diagrammed position, the quiet 36.Rd1 was winning, simply transferring the rook to the open file, planning Rd6 with an unstoppable attack.

Soon after missing the opportunity, Goryachkina found herself in an inferior position.

The tables had turned in just five moves, and suddenly Alexandra Kosteniuk was in the driver’s seat. Perhaps the fact that she survived what seemed to be a lethal attack prevented the experienced grandmaster to find the correct move, though — Kosteniuk invited an exchange of queens with 41...Qd4 instead of going for 41...Qe3, protecting the c-pawn’s promotion square.

In fact, the queen swap would have favoured Black, but Goryachkina found the correct continuation in 42.Nh3, rerouting her knight to create threats against Black’s king. 

The queens did leave the board soon after, and the game seemed to be heading towards a draw.

Solid and safe against the Indian openings: Play the Fianchetto

The King''s Indian and Grunfeld are notoriously tricky and theoretical openings. The Fianchetto variation avoids the main lines which Black players enjoy, and goes for a small but safe edge. GM Nick Pert played the Fianchetto variation for over 20 years, and at the time of recording was unbeaten with White since November 2011!

Kosteniuk eventually came out on top from this position thanks to her active king and far-advanced passer on the c-file. The 37-year-old from Perm now only needs a draw to win the first edition of the Women’s World Cup.

Alexandra Kosteniuk | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova

In the match for third place, Tan Zhongyi and Anna Muzychuk curiously played the exact same first 12 moves seen in the first semifinal between Sergey Karjakin and Vladimir Fedoseev in the open section, played concurrently. 

A well-played game by both contenders was agreed a draw after 42 moves.

Photographers Anastasiia Korolkova and Eric Rosen have done an excellent job portraying the players during the gruelling events — Tan Zhongyi and Anna Muzychuk | Photo: Eric Rosen

Duda gets a valuable half point

About ten months ago, on 10 October 2020, Jan-Krzysztof Duda ended Magnus Carlsen’s 125-game undefeated streak by beating him with white in round 5 of the Norway Chess Tournament in Stavanger. Yesterday, at the semifinals of the FIDE World Cup, the Polish grandmaster collected a crucial half point with the black pieces against the strongest player in the world.

A World Champion's Repertoire against the Queen's Gambit Declined

This DVD offers a complete repertoire for handling this solid opening, often featuring a dynamic approach to pose the opponent more practical problems. Both of the main continuations 3...Nf6 and 3...Be7 are covered in two separate parts.

Duda safely reached this balanced position and showed good technique by playing 28...d3 instead of 28...a5 in this rook ending. GM Karsten Müller explains the intricacies of this endgame in his annotations below. 

Magnus Carlsen and Jan-Krzysztof Duda | Photo: Eric Rosen

Meanwhile, Fedoseev and Karjakin only drew after 69 moves. They had reached a heavy-piece middlegame by move 25.

Master Class Vol.14 - Vasily Smyslov

Smyslov cultivated a clear positional style and even in sharp tactical positions often relied more on his intuition than on concrete calculation of variations. Let our authors introduce you into the world of Vasily Smyslov.

A long manoeuvring battle ensued, with Karjakin eventually agreeing to simplify into a rook endgame a pawn down, in which his passed pawn on the a-file gave him enough compensation to keep the balance.

A friendly exchange ensued once the draw was agreed — Sergey Karjakin and Vladimir Fedoseev | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova

• Full schedule
• Pairings and results: Open | Women’s
• All games with computer analysis: Open | Women’s

Links

• Official site
• Players lists and full pairings of FIDE World Cups published